Saturday, February 18, 2006
I think the best reading to start with for complete beginners would be either Johnston, T. C. (2002). Teaching with a Weblog: How to Post Student Work Online. or Kennedy, K. (2003). Writing with Web Logs. Both articles deal with blog basics and tackle the same issue: how blogs can be used in teaching. Though quite old for technology standards, the first article is quite good and really starts from scratch, actually right from the definition of the term blog, and highlights the main advantages of blogging as well as pointing out some practial features. In addition the second articles provides useful insight on assessment.
Then I would recommend the booklet by Dieu, B. (2004). Blogging and Presence Online. It is really thorough and tackles both blogging and building webpages from a practical point of view. There are also many examples of different blogs and extensive references for those who wish to explore the topic more deeply.
My third choice would be the article by Cross, J. (2002). Blogs. Learning Circuits. Cross is a well known expert in blogging and his Blog Internet Time Group is visited by thousands of practitioners interested in e-learning. The article goes over the basics, so it could be a repetition for those who have already covered the first two entries, but in a way “repetita juvant”, moreover there are aslo references to important features such as RSS feed and to some very good blogs.
Then I would suggest Campbell, A. P. (2004). Using LiveJournal for Authentic Communication in EFL Classes. The article deals almost exclusively on how to create blogs with LiveJournal but it is really thorough and provides step by step tips which could come in handy for beginners.
I don’t really think the second article by Campbel, Weblogs for Use with ESL Classes can add much to the ones already quoted, so I would suggest to skip it, unless one has lots of time to spare.
Since week 3 deals with establishing a webpresence and also features building up webpages I would add to the list an article by V. Stevens: Establishing and Maintaining Web Presence: A guide for educators in http://writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej31/int.html, a review of the main tools which can be used to establish a web presence.
I would also reommend Jack Kimball: Thriving on Screen: Web-Authoring for L2 Instruction, in http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kimball-WebAuthoring.html. The article provides some basic tips on web-authoring and can be a good starting point to try one’s hand at that.
Finally I would add something about wiki. Why not the wiki starting point at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?StartingPoints, to get an idea on how to build up a dynamic website?.